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Posted: September 9, 2009

Optomec's Aerosol Jet Printing Solution to Be Supported by Leading Photovoltaic Material Suppliers

(Nanowerk News) Optomec announced today that leading photovoltaic material suppliers are now providing material for the company’s Aerosol Jet® printing process. Established material vendors Cabot Corporation, DuPont® Microcircuit Materials and Heraeus, along with market newcomer Five Star Technologies™, have worked closely with Optomec over the past year to optimize their front-side metallization materials for the Aerosol Jet process. With the availability of source materials from these companies, Optomec and its partners are now fully prepared to meet mutual customers’ increased cell efficiency requirements.

Initial material availability will be for seed and plate applications for crystalline wafers. The Aerosol Jet print system is capable of printing front-side collector lines with a width of 40 microns or less at production speeds of up to 2400 wafers per hour. The print material has been optimized for etching through the Silicon Nitride layer and meets series resistance requirements. The printing step is followed by a plating process to build up the conductivity of the collector lines. Optomec is working in close conjunction with its material partners with goals of further enhancing the seed and plate process along with delivering a fully printed front-side metallization solution that includes a multi-material capability, to allow contact resistance and conductivity to be optimized separately. For more information on materials successfully printed with Optomec's Aerosol Jet technology, click here.

Dave Ramahi, President and CEO of Optomec, states, “We are pleased that leading and emerging material suppliers have partnered with Optomec to fully enable the benefits of the Aerosol Jet process for solar cell applications. This will allow our customers to readily implement the Aerosol Jet solution for printing front-side collector lines and to meet emerging backside metallization requirements.”

Optomec is the leading provider of additive manufacturing systems for high-performance applications in the Electronics, Photovoltaic, Biomedical, and Aerospace & Defense markets. These systems utilize Optomec’s proprietary Aerosol Jet technology and LENS® powder-metal fabrication technology. The company has a global customer base that includes premier research institutes and industry-leading manufacturers.